Marathoner

Bear with me here.  I got up at 0430 and caught the 0535  Long Island Railroad (LIRR) to Penn Station.  On the LIRR, marathoners.  In Penn, I caught the #1 subway to the Staten Island Ferry (SIF);  at 0615, it was standing room only on the subway, worse than on a work day rush hour except all marathoners.  These are the stairs leading up to the SIF, all marathoners almost.

Here’s from the roof of the ferry terminal on Staten Island looking south.  See that line of people?

They’re all waiting for a shuttle bus ride (approx 3 miles) to the starting line.

I was there to watch a particular marathoner, so I made my way to a pier.   Double click on these fotos to enlarge them.  The FDNY water display was intended for all 48,001 marathoners, including my favorite, who has the distinction of  being accommodated to pass UNDER the bridge rather than over it.

Recognize her?

Escorted along the end of this leg of her ongoing marathon by Marjorie B. and Robert E. McAllister, it’s

you guessed it, the only contestant to negotiate the sixth boro, Alice Oldendorff.   If you’re new to this blog, type Alice into the upper left search window and you’ll see the particulars between Alice and me.

I recall seeing Alice back in 2005, and since then she’s deliver several million tons of Canadian maritime aggregates into the port, the stuff you need to build and maintain a metropolis.   She’s an indefatigable marathoner.

What a day for her to arrive.

All fotos and fabricated view of reality by Will Van Dorp.

For NY Daily News pics of the race, click here.

Bertha’s Present

Sunsets can gild and indemnify the efforts of the day.  A lightship can help safely navigate the impending darkness.

but sunsets can also torment.  Although it’s the last day of September and progress has been very slow in trying to raise the $$ to save Bertha,

there is still time.  Someone must know someone who

can help so that this hull gets completed, surfaces get gets sandblasted and repainted, and all the rest so that

this handiwork will be complemented with

clear views out these lights, and

celebration.

So that these D13000 speak again.

And splash gurgle back out to sea

Anchors lowered

get raised.

Help.

Final foto by Allen Baker.  All others by Will Van Dorp, whose previous Bertha posts were here and here.

Here’s Bertha‘s blog.

Other Peoples Fotos 23

Here was 22.

Fotos today come from David Gardiner and Paul Strubeck.  David took fotos 1 and 3 on September 1 at dawn.  More of David’s beautiful work can be found at DaveGarPhoto.

Paul–who has frequently contributed fotos  on this blog including one of my all-time favorites here–says both fotos here were taken in the Welland Canal.  The one below dates from 1978.

Another of David’s fotos of Discovery Coast.

This one from Paul dates from 1974.

And a half hour before David took the spectacular sunrise fotos in Gowanus Bay on September 1, I took this one of James Turecamo, an indefatigeable 44-year-old.

Many thanks to David and Paul.

Bertha’s Future

. . . literally hangs in the balance in the next weeks.  This 1925 Tyne River-built flat-bottomed timber tug needs $150,000 pledged, or  . . .        I’ll come back to the  ” . . . or”    To pledge, click on the image of the tug to the left, click on the contribute button, and follow the prompts.

Bertha was one of four of these tugs used to move booms of timber to the mill in the Bay of Islands area of western Newfoundland starting in the mid-1920s.  Click here for fotos of that timber operation; particularly appropriate are fotos # 189, 259, and 263.

Darren Vigilant (below) bought Bertha in 1999, drove her to New York, and if you were  paying  attention to the harbor from that time, you might recall seeing it.    Click here to see fotos from then as well as an illustrated history of the vessel and lists of what has been done and remains.  Currently, she’s in a yard in Staten Island.

I took these fotos last weekend and will

be adding followups in the weeks to come.

But the clock is ticking.  Here is the  ” . . . or else” part.

Time is running out, and Bertha could be scrapped and added to the half million dollar pile of metal chunks.

Shudder the thought.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp, who’d love to see any fotos you might have of Bertha sailing in New York harbor between 1999 and 2003.   Click on the image below to hear Darren make a plea for the boat.

How to Swim TO a Helicopter

Actually the key is making it possible for the helicopter to find you.  In some cases, assisting the task of arriving at your location makes the difference between life and death;  things don’t always go so well.  On a windy unsettled afternoon last week I happened to be there when

an obsessively circling C-130 over Oswego’s lighthouse demanded attention.  I wish I’d stumbled onto this scene the day they trained search & rescue with a Reaper drone.   Here’s another link about that drill.

As it was, the helicopter here working with the USCG puzzled me, and

having no VHF or binoculars, I couldn’t tell whether the debris on the jetty was just drifted remains of a Lake Ontario shoreline tree, but

someone had certainly swum to proximity of  rescuer.

In the half hour that followed at least a half dozen “winchings up” and “down” before

it returned to USCG Station Oswego.   Click here for their flickr page.   Click here for info on the blue-yellow structure to the lower left, NYS Derrick Boat 8, the last steam-powered barge (with dredge capabilities at one time) on the Erie Canal . . . maybe even in New York .  DB8 is also known as Lance Knapp, named for a salvage diver.

A half year ago I watched a helicopter rescue drill  here.

All fotos taken within an hour by Will Van Dorp.  Here was my previous swimming post.

PS:  Enjoy the additional fotos below from the Port of Oswego, showing schooner OMF Ontario,  LT-5, and fishtug Eleanor D, and Oswego West Pierhead Light.

Second Lives 11

Here was 10 about an honest Navy tug turned narco-mothership, possibly, and wondering where she now may be.

I owe this post to tugboathunter, who caught not only a major typo in yesterday’s post but also presented me a key to understanding an unusual looking trawler called Nomada.  I’ll be direct . . . two, three, four decades ago she was an austere tugboat called Colinette (little hill) working in Canada.  See addition at the end of this post.  Six and seven decades ago she was a Royal Canadian Navy tug that crossed the Atlantic to operate out of unidentified ports in the UK.   My source for all this is here, which tugboathunter pointed me toward.

An hour and some after dawn yesterday I caught this fotos, and imagined she was a rough-cut Krogen type trawler, a scaled-down coastal freighter replica,   or some hybrid thereof.

Who would think she started life 70 years ago on Owen Sound.

I’d love to see interior fotos.

All these shots by Will Van Dorp.

And this just in from Jason LaDue, Colinette back in November 1999.

What a retrofit job!

Blue Friday

See that empty space way up there?

It’s about to change.    Ten million dollars worth of structure is about to rise.  Nine of the 18 pieces have arrived in the sixth boro aka the harbor of NYC.

Just before noon today,

the cargo turned into the Kill Van Kull, squired in

by DonJon Marine’s

Atlantic Salvor, passing directly in front of the building the antenna soon will adorn.

As I said, watch that open space and when the antenna is planted there,

remember Atlantic Salvor and Witte barge 1407.

All fotos this morning by Will Van Dorp, who wonders how these segments will be transported to lower Manhattan.

Government Boats 21

Here was 20.  And below is Wire, Saugerties-based “boat of the year” at the 2012 Waterford Tugboat Roundup.  In less than a year, the New Bern NC Barbour WYTL will be a half-century old, although to me she looked brand spanking new.

Note the crane on Gelberman‘s stern:  she’s one of several debris-collectors operated by the Corps of Engineers.

Like the “bear boats” I wrote about yesterday, seeing 32-year-old Morro Bay in the sixth boro is another uncommon seasonal indicator;  it’s going to get cold soon (maybe) and ice will need breaking.

Hugo started life as an oilfield support vessel, but now, painted gray, works as a weapons-training Naval auxiliary vessel.    Homeported near Hugo is Apache, subject of several posts including this one.  Recently, Apache has been tasked with a diver-training mission as reported here.

Continuing outside New York, Cheryl B sent this foto along from Grand Haven MI.  Vessel 105 is a WTGB that no doubt lay side-by-side in the shipyard with Morro Bay as they were constructed in Tacoma several decades back.  Neah Bay is Lake Erie-based  . .  but from there, the sixth boro is only a voyage away.  Any guesses on the red vessel off 105′ stern?

It’s Griffon, which appeared here on this blog four years ago.

The 42-year-old vessel is based on the St. Lawrence, just northeast of the top right corner of Lake Ontario. The “F-word” on her stern has no place on USCG vessels, although no doubt US and Canadian vessels found themselves on opposite sides of these wars of the late 20th century.

HMCS Moncton, last month, was paying a friendly visit to Port Huron MI.

And finally, thanks to JED, HMS Vigilant, a sub that resembles a whale.  Read about it here on JED’s site.

Any finally . . .  I mentioned earlier that Wire was “vessel of the year” at the Waterford Roundup.  Here, with thanks to Brian Gauvin, is a frozen nanosecond of the fireworks show that brought the roundup to a close.

Thanks again to Cheryl, Jed, and Brian.  Thanks also to Rick Old Salt for  a reality check on piracy.

North Woods Alligator Paleontology

Two years ago, I learned about these tugs while north of the border here.   Many thanks to Paul Fehling for today’s fotos of alligator tug remains.  He took the fotos while canoeing recently in western Maine.    My reference book called Alligators of the North makes me believe these could be this could be what’s left of a 1923 warping tug called Alligator shipped from Simcoe Ontario to Portland Maine.

These ruins raise questions like . . .  are there fotos of Alligator intact and

how did it ship from Lake Erie to here?

When was it last operational?

It lies downstream from Umbagog Lake near the New Hampshire/Maine border, not far from the town of Errol, where I haven’t been in over 20 years.

Many thanks to Paul Fehling.

For some coastal Maine delights, click here for Sally W reports from Camden.

Solstice Post 3

This is the work and play post . . . the real connection is that although we all have to work, an important secret is to enjoy what you do.    Imagine this enthusiasm in a  co-worker or yourself on Monday morning, whether you’re struggling to finish a group report or

like the Villiersdorp farmers and ALE and their associates moving Alwyn Vintcent on 80 functioning wheels–at least– around Table Mountain.

If you don’t enjoy it . ..  or relish the challenge and execution,

you won’t even start the job.

This is the only way to get through obstacles that stop your progress . . .   Revel in the task  . . . like

the folks at NYS Marine Highway, now shipping corn–yes–corn–out of Ontario and into the Erie Canal.    How long has it been that agricultural commodities have been shipped on the Erie Canal . . . how long have people talked about shipping same on that waterway that revolutionized NYC . . .  or international shipping entering the Erie Canal, but Margot (over a half century young) and its crew

is actually-as we speak–

doing it!  Bravo to the folks at NYS Marine Highway.   Click here for lots more fotos of Margot.

Sun dancing is great, but the spirit that drives the dancers also animates folks

who dance with ships and lines and

get one task done safely and then move to the next and the next.

So whatever you do, whatever I do . . .

I know that if I can do it in a way that gets me satifaction and pleasure,

the better.

South African fotos come compliments of Colin Syndercombe;  the Oswego/Erie Canal fotos,   . . . Allan and Sally of  Sally W,   and all the others by Will Van Dorp.

Related:  Here’s another ALE job.

Unrelated:  The longest marathon swim starts tomorrow morning over 100 miles up the Hudson.